AAIZEL designer Minnie Jo and filmmakers Julian Lucas and Jarred Osborn both push the artistic boundaries of their fields. The result of their collaboration is a striking, memorable short film that is beautifully subtle in displaying a collection from Melbourne based label AAIZEL.
The film’s haunting cinematography mimics the clothing it displays with sharp lines and dramatic contrasts of colour, texture and shape. Jo’s dramatic designs juxtapose fabrics of contrasting nature to create a sense of harmony, which is certainly what also occurs in the editing and cinematic style of the film. Made up of fast cuts between lingering close up shots and broad establishing shots made up of diagonal lines and contrasting colour, each shot from the film is harsh and dramatic but beautifully edited. These striking shots are frozen on screen for seconds at a time, creating a calming sense of harmony, causing the film to appear almost as if it were a moving magazine editorial.
The film’s artistic quality is its most impressive feature. Many of the films that made up Melbourne Fashion Festival’s Fashion Film Series unintentionally come across as being quite commercial, especially when viewed one after the other (as they were screened as a part of the festival). AAIZEL is a pleasant break away from that sense of commerciality. Rather than blatantly modelling the clothes, they are weaved beautifully into the film with a mixture of extreme, frozen close ups and broad establishing shots. The film makers have excelled at eliminating any sense of commerciality within the film, meaning that those who are not particularly interested in fashion will view the film and appreciate its artistic quality. Instead of using three minutes attempting to begin and complete a storyline, AAIZEL pleasantly leaves itself up to interpretation, focusing on creating striking imagery rather than a memorable plot.
AAIZEL’s simplicity is its most redeeming feature. Its stillness in colour, line and contrast in its cinematography perfectly matches the clothing within the film, showcasing the perfect aesthetic match between designer and film maker. Many fashion films, with their blatant modelling and selling of clothes can seem quite pretentious, but AAIZEL’s artistic quality overtakes any sense of commerciality, making it tense, capturing and hypnotising. A sure standout within the Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival’s Fashion Film Series.
AAIZEL played as part of the Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival Cultural Program 2015
Image source: The Weekly Review
